my ink stained fingers
carry the black memories
of the morning news
but I cannot bear to soil
sparkling garden dew
therefore nature’s innocence
still remains untouched
my itching scabs on fingers
want to claw apart
bitterness of crying world
stigmatized by news
the soot of burning cities
gunpowder residue
from murder of civilians
black dragon tattoo
of an innocent teenager
gang raped yesterday
but releasing evening tears
my ink stained fingers
are ready for another
reading of the morning news
—
This is my entry for tonight’s open link night at dVerse. Pub open at 3PM EST. Come with your poetry and read with us.
June 25, 2013
Björn Rudbergs writings 
very nice and interesting
Thank you 🙂
Indeed the reading of the news does stain one’s fingers oftentimes, but thankfully nature retains its beauty and we can always turn in its direction to cleanse our mind (and fingers). But despite the horror of each day’s news, we keep reading every day, don’t we? Perhaps in hopes that one day the news will be different!
I would love to read the news that: today was a very peaceful day in Kabul, with children playing and girls attending school… but no.. .instead it’s the usual news.
oy, the news…i would love to read some good news as well…its all the death and carnage…where are the stories of those helping others…i like your retreat to nature…and not wanting to soil it…that i where i go when the burden of the news becomes too great….
sometimes the news can be just overwhelming with all the terrible things that happen all across the globe – and they just storm in on us staccato like and we don’t even have time to digest them…but how could we anyway…
I try to avoid the news at all costs b/c I get so wrapped up in it,.. makes me depressed.
Your raging poem speaks my mind: Morning, noon, night, repeat. Sisyphus like.
I like the image of the ink stained fingers (this cruel and wanton world) never being cleaned enough for innocent nature. Very good.
so true… I get up in the morning and don’t even want to read the news, but you can’t hide from what’s going on in the world…
Great title! Good presentation too. The endless news, never ends though it scars and scabs us.
…How i wish newspapers can carry solutions more frequent than it carries second hand articles ’bout some pesky repeated history…
I feel you. I always take the news so hard, so much pain and sorrow and you expressed it beautifully.
I thnk the news media do a terrific job of “hiding the news”. They print the ugliness, hiding as best they can any good news. And THERE IS PLENTY OF IT.
The world is, and has always been full of givers, receivers, goodness, caring, living and loving people. When I ride my scooter up the Interstates, and stop under an overpass, I am (usually) swamped with people stopping to help. Strangers! Sometimes we just hang out a bit, then never meet again.
With no way to KNOW, no stats, I have to hope, and believe that Good is somewhere, somehow winning out over evil. That news–if true–would NOT sell papers, or TV air time!
We have that constant devilish urge to “feel” like we are BETTER or better off, than others, whether next door neighbor, or parents in Kabul .No, I don’t have answers, nor a solution for everyone. I just “say what I mean, mean what I say, and try not to say it mean.”
PEACE!
I’m so glad for the reality… fortunately it’s only the fingertips (and they might be colored from trying to repair my bicycle on my way to work instead…..) I think that you are right about reading about misery to feel that we have a good life… well put.. The news is really a big propaganda to keep us calm…
beautiful and so hard hitting …
I refuse to watch the news. There’s nothing new about it. Except maybe… that it’s getting worse.
Excellent write, Bjorn!
What a haunting and dark poem, Bjorn! So this is what comes out of white nights 🙂
Your ink stained fingers leaving me feeling that we’re all under the same sky for sure, and a silent prayer is the only way to respond to your poem.
Oddly this reminds me of the one cool thing President Reagan did early in his presidency which was to challenge the media to only report good news for a week !! Aptly titled, as I always had ink-stained fingertips from reading the New York Times !!
This feels so sad to me—the persistence of pain and our ability to perceive it in new ways–
News is blues, and reds, and black. A gritty and heartfelt piece, Bjorn. I don’t own a TV to insulate myself, however feebly.
Bjorn, such a study in contrasts. Like you, and I suppose most of us, I ache at the thought of the heartbreak we encounter in the days news…and we are bombarded with it.
That is what is in store for ‘our reading pleasure’ in most mornings. It’s not pleasurable at all. Not with all the ills of human failings right there for the finger to tap. Nice twist to it, Bjorn!
Hank
Sometimes I don’t like to listen to the news because all I read are bad & even more depressing news ~ I can only hope for a bit of summer sunshine & some good news ~ Have a good weekend ~
A stain the seems to linger some days indeed
Yes, it’s easy to forget that the business of news is to sell more papers, although there is some goodness squished in between the violence and hate. I love the image of the fingers stained by the ink, and by the stories read.
It’s so sad what this world has come to but you wrote it well.
“claw apart
bitterness of crying world”
my spirit hears those cries
well done!
Powerful piece of writing.
ink stained fingers..the news can do that to you..as you read the horror that is going on in the world. The world is in turmoil and it cries to be healed. We need more positive news so people can hold hope in their hearts. Where is justice..where is hope..as we try to cope..
stains more than our fingers… I often think it is a shame local newspapers are finding it hard to stay afloat. I like the hometown feel of them so much better than the big papers… the smaller ones still make me feel we humans have a fighting chance…
I had to back up from the news. I want to be informed but I don’t need the immediacy and bombardment flooding all channels now. Remember when folks relied on film reels? Okay, don’t want to go that far, but I certainly don’t won’t tweets, tumbler, youtube, cable all screaming all the time.
Powerful composition!
I felt this deeply.
Such a vivid description of reading the daily news~it is sadly too much pain and sorrow. Great work here.
I’ve stopped buying newspapers…get the news on internet and telly…but my eyes are still stained with horrors.. Your ink stained fingers are a metaphor for me about our interconnectedness w. the world…in some distant way, we are all responsible for what happens in the world…and there is no escaping this. A fine poem, Bjorn!
I feel like that lately – am avoiding the evening news on TV, for instance, or listen to the CD rather than news in my car. Escapism? Head in sand? Don’t know, but I feel less ‘stained’, less contaminated. Thank you for expressing so much of what I feel!
A fellow bleeding heart… I feel this deeply. Well captured!
The news bleeds our hearts and inks our fingers. So true. But still, I can’t stop reading it.
Bjorn, this has a wonderful flow. Yes, the news now all the time is dreadful, will it ever cease? I think not. People seem to be out of control.
Pamela
The news is relentless in its presentation of negativity. A retreat to nature sounds like a cure to escape all the bad news. Very nice, Bjorn.
You had me at the title, Bjorn–fabulous. But then the poem itself sucked me in even more deeply. The bit about soiling dew was the best. Thanks for sharing.
Very powerful, and then with those last four lines, it’s ‘here we go again.’